What Themes do You Want to See Integrated with Layouts?

   Amir

Announcements

October 20, 2015
72

Wouldn’t it be great if Layouts plugin came pre-integrated with your theme?

Update (Oct 29) – Genesis integration going great

We’re halfway through integration with Genesis. This integration allows you to run sites with Genesis and its child themes and Layouts, without any preparation work.

You will see a new ‘Genesis’ section in the list of cells. It will include all the Genesis page areas, like the title, menu, widgets, footer, etc.

Layouts lets you drag these sections around and combine then with the normal Toolset elements. This works great with the basic Genesis, as well as child themes. The only ‘limitation’ is that page elements should not have absolute positioning, so that not to break the grid.

Which themes next?

Because of the way Layouts works, Layouts needs to be integrated into the theme. Once this happens, Layouts lets you shift around and design anything on the site (not only inside the ‘content’ area).

We are going to start a project for pre-integrating Layouts into popular themes. When this is done, you will be able to activate the theme, activate Layouts and things will ‘just work’.

You can help. Tell us what themes you are using most frequently and how you envision Layouts integration in them. We want to know what areas of the page you want to be able to control with Layouts and if there’s anything special that we need to know.

Leave your comments and we’ll start a discussion!

 

Comments 72 Responses

  2. I tried the top 20 themeforest themes and I chose The7 over the others due to the complete and always updated compatibility with visual composer + visual composer ultimate addons.
    I chose it also for the header settings in each page ( the best one if you want an easy custom header for each page ) and for the fact that it doesn’t use bootstrap ( yesssss ) so you can block the responsive if you don’t need it ( and we don’t ) while with the other themes blocking bootstrap is a PAIN.

    I didn’t chose it for the elements, I never use the theme’s custom elements inside visual composer.

    I have no idea if layouts is useful to me in any way, I use cred, view, types and access but never tried Layouts, I may give it a try.

  3. This is a great news indeed.
    i would like to integrate the Genesis framework with Layouts, its a very popular theme that I use on a daily basis for client projects.
    It will be also great to have more and more features like cells that can insert accordions, tabs and so on.
    I mainly use Layouts in the content area but see the potential to build landing pages fron header to footer in Genesis as well.
    I think that it could be very useful to have pre-made layouts to use as a starting point when building the layouts.

    As usual great products and ideas from the Toolset team.
    Many thanks

    • Hi Roberto. We’ve updated the blog post with a preview video of Layouts + Genesis. Want to watch it and give your feedback?

      • Hi Amir,

        Just watched the video… It looks great! So when we place or re-position Genesis elements like the title area or the header right widget they also get the Genesis CSS I assume.

        I assume that the structural Genesis divs go inside Bootstrap rows and columns, did I get it right? But in the mean time they get the default Genesis child theme style, is that correct?
        Nice the drag and drop reposition of elements,

        Look really good indeed. Well done Toolset!

        Thanks

        • Yes, you get the full Genesis CSS, SEO, security, functions, hooks and everything else. Only thing that Layouts overrides is the full-page render. Instead of following the rigid PHP, you get full flexibility to position elements with Layouts.

          Bootstrap and Genesis CSS have a few minor conflicts (like padding). The Genesis+Layouts integration includes a CSS fix file which resolves them and makes Genesis CSS look like it should.

  4. Hi,

    I think Layouts would be great after having a seamless integration with Genesis and Dynamik Website Builder and maybe even Beaver Builder.

    My Ultimate Combo : Genesis – Toolset – Dynamik – Beaver Builder

    • +1 for Genesis & Beaver. In the case of Beaver theme – it’s already Bootstrap. A Genesis Bridge” plugin (like the ones to bridge Genesis to WooCommerce, BBPress etc) would be cleaner if practical.

      • We’ve updated the blog post with a video of Layouts and Genesis integration. This is still work in progress, but very promising.

    • We’ve updated the blog with a preview video of Genesis + Layouts. Want to watch it and give your feedback?

      • Exciting stuff. There seems to be a lot of customer cross-over between Toolset and Dynamic Website Builder. It installs as a Genesis child theme. It would be nice if it worked with the Genesis / Layouts integration. If you don’t have a copy of it, I could setup a test site for you.

  5. Hi Amir,

    I’m a big fan of two themes “iThemes” and “Headway Themes”. To integrate Layouts with these two themes would be fantastic.

    Cheers
    Chris

  6. Hi Amir,

    What about bootstrap starter themes like _tk or DevDmBootstrap3? Also, if it is straightforward, a video showing how to integrate Layouts would be helpful.

    Thank you,

    David

    • Ronald, please visit that blog post again to see a preview of Genesis + Toolset. We’d love to hear your feedback for that.

      • This looks very promising indeed! is the integration with Genesis Live? How do I go about integrating layouts and genesis?

        Also, any news on an integration with iThemes Builder?

  8. Dynamik from cobaltapps seems a good option, i see that you already share users (including me).

    There are some themes with drag and drop like Layers from obox and Flow from themify both are free and open source, these seem good choices too.

    And I think you should consider making “modules” for some “pagebuilders” like SiteOrigin https://siteorigin.com/page-builder/
    and of course the divi plugin from ElegantThemes, making this we have the chance to give pur clients just one “builder” with all the functionality

    • Wouldn’t Headway and Layouts basically do the same thing? How would you practically use both Layouts and Headway on the same site?

      • Headway is a higher level page layout tool. It doesn’t handle reusable components which is what Layouts does, right?

      • Unfortanatelly Enfold and Avada are not bootstrap themes.
        However they are very flexible, containing functionality and design capabilities which make them super capable for wp site development.

        • Bootstrap CSS is not a requirement for this project. In the last few days, we nearly completed integration between Layouts and Genesis. Genesis doesn’t use Bootstrap. For the integration, we load the necessary CSS and all works fine.

          Genesis integration will take us about a week more. Then, we’ll look into integration with other themes. We very much hope that we’ll manage this with the popular Avada and Enfold.

          • With the Genesis integration…are we able to style with bootstrap now out of the box? I’d love to be able to use bootstrap to style my genesis child theme without any further integration.

            • Yes. Toolset will load the Bootstrap CSS, so it will be available throughout the site. This includes also while working on child themes. We’re almost there. Polishing last things and are going to release this integration in the next few days. We want you to get a nice and polished product on the first release.

            • Awesome, thanks Amir! Now I’m just waiting for an easy way to swap out bootstrap for foundation! 🙂 toolset just keeps getting better and better.

              Actually, one more question…
              With this integration, can we sell child themes for Genesis now similar to the way embedded toolset works?

            • Actually, we have that too. Riccardo, the lead developer of Layouts took the framework-independence and made it his own pet project. The upcoming version of Layouts will allow to work with Foundations too. There may be glitches with it, as it very new, but it’s coming.

              Yes, this should also work with the Embedded version for Toolset. It’s something that we haven’t fully tested, but should work.

  13. Another hand up to get Layout integrated with Headway Themes. Currently I use types and views within the content areas of Headway Themes. I use Headway to create the backdrop and base level designs plus I like the eco-system of CSS and WISIWIG editing along with access to all the pages, posts and archive pages available in WordPress.

    Granted, I’ve not used Layouts yet… since I thought I needed to have to learn to use boot strap to effect changes. I have my own custom CSS, that I use with in Headway that does most everything I need.

  14. As a Toolset customer, I would like to see it integrated with Divi (from Elegantthemes).
    Elegantthemes people write they have now more than 300 thousands WordPress customers…

  17. Great idea to integrate Layout with our favorite theme.
    I use Divi from Eleganttheme.
    Eleganttheme has more than three hundred thousands customers and the framework for all their themes will be Divi.

  19. I’m for Headway, too. The match is a natural for Layouts. You would use Layouts for components and then place those components into Headway templates and pages.

    I really don’t like most of the other page builders (Divi, Ultra, etc.) because they by-pass most of the WordPress CMS structure.

    • I would like to be able to integrate the Divi plugin. The Divi plugin can work with any theme. I’m using it with Genesis so I would like to design some of the page with layouts but then add the Divi features as well.

      Is this possible Amir?

      • It’s on our wishlist too. We’re currently working on a number of other themes and will see how it goes. Yes, we want to completely integrate Toolset with Divi (and with a number of other page builders).

        • Yes Divi intigration would be extremely good. I love both toolset and divi and use them together as often I can.

  24. http://runwaywp.com/ is an interesting framework that follows a similar philosophy as Toolset (create themes without programming).

    1- Toolset embedded features to add CPTs, views, forms and layouts
    2- Runwaywp framework to export a standalone theme including Theme Options.

    Layouts easy integration would be great.

  26. Hi Amir and all,

    [1]

    +3 sites for AVADA.

    that would be awesome. we are using wpml and toolset with woocommerce+AVADA already and are generally very happy.

    [2]
    any ETA on AVADA ? no promises, I just want to know if to get into layouts or do just Views+AVADA.

    [3]
    Also, is Types going to be capable of editing other themes’ custom post types ? in AVADA, I use the ‘Portfolio’ post type a lot and it comes with its customs fields. is that possible/going to be possible to teak that with the (wonderful) Types ?

    thank you.

    • We should be ready with the Avada integration in about a week. Right now, we have it working in our development version. We are completing last items and will release a beta for testing. Our plan is to do this next week.

      • wow !:) great
        revising #3:
        is Types going to be capable of editing other themes’ custom post types ? in AVADA, I use the ‘Portfolio’ post type a lot and it comes with its customs fields. It is not visible to Types. is that possible/going to be possible to tweak/edit Portfolio and it’s fields with the (wonderful) Types ? or generate a better Content View to the ‘Portfolio’ db I already have with AVADA ?
        thank you

        • We’re probably not familiar enough with Avada to know about this. Please create a ticket in our support forum, explain what you are trying to do and what you are seeing instead. Add a link with the ticket to a comment here and I’ll connect that to the right developer, who is working on the Avada integration.

        • Sorry for the slow response. We’re running some usability tests on it this week and will release a working version early next week.

  27. Divi. If I could get WP-Types to work seamlessly with Divi (for both their Divi and Extra themes) I think I could really take off. Trying to figure out how to display CPT’s from Toolset IN Divi is frustrating and delaying a lot of development.

    Please add Divi integration soon…

  28. How about what you “sell” in your site?:

    “No coding” and “Toolset plugins run on any theme and help you achieve true separation between design and functionality.”

    I am a little beat disappointed after purchased the toolset 🙁

    • Could you tell me what you are disappointed with? What are you trying to achieve and having trouble with Toolset. Also, please don’t feel bad. If Toolset isn’t what you expect it do be, tell us and we can refund your order.

    • Amir

      When I read the alert that I should modify my theme I was a beat worried. But after some time trying to understand your toolset I see most of the functions I was searching, I can implement it on my site without the “theme integration”.

      I will learn a beat more and if I have any question I will comment here or open a suport ticket. Thank you.